Guest editorial Free

Digitalization continues to transform international marketing strategy (IMS), offering many new opportunities for firms. Indeed, digitalization's fundamental changes to the IMS landscape provide many versatile tools that firms can employ to cultivate and maintain customer relationships, and empower businesses to interact globally with customers in ways that were impossible before. This mega-trend is a new business norm not only in the developed world but also in emerging markets. For example, Facebook enables many small and medium companies to promote and communicate their products globally (Manyika and Lund, 2016), while Alibaba also facilitates the early internationalization of numerous Chinese exporters. Digitalization also offers firms many new ways to understand customer insights and effectively make strategic international marketing decisions.

However, digitalization also brings some challenges to managers in their IMS design and implementation. For example, firms nowadays have to maintain multiple touch points on various social media around the world (Maechler et al., 2016). Furthermore, fierce and dysfunctional competition (such as counterfeit products on various digital platforms) makes effective promotion and product introduction more challenging. Accordingly, many internationally active businesses are struggling to understand how to cope in the face of the new global challenges and opportunities the age of digitalization brings with it, and understanding how to develop successful digital IMS is becoming a critical issue.

In line with these managerial trends, academic work is investigating the impact of digitalization and the Internet on IMS. Conceptual and empirical work focuses on the effect of the Internet on exporting and internationalization (Oxley and Yeung, 2001; Prasad et al., 2001). Other studies explore the effect of digitalization and the Internet on international business-to-business relationships and global supply chain issues (Jean et al., 2010, 2008).

Despite some progress on the role of digitalization in IMS in the international marketing literature, our understanding on the phenomenon is still quite limited. This special issue aims at pushing the frontiers of knowledge of this emerging and important issue in international marketing, through both conceptual and empirical work. Therefore, the main objective of this special issue is to bring together a host of conceptual, empirical and case study research to enrich scholarly understanding of how digitalization can shape IMS. The call generated significant interests from scholars around the world. We received 26 manuscripts, out of which 20 were given full double-blind review. Eventually, 10 papers were accepted for inclusion in this special issue. The articles included in this special issue went through at least three rounds of revision.

Table 1 summarizes prior work on the effect of digitalization on IMS. Previous studies have investigated different dimensions and issues of how digitalization on firms' IMS. For example, Prasad et al. (2001) develop a conceptual framework to investigate the relationship among market orientation, marketing competencies and export performance and the role of Internet marketing integration in these relationships. Gregory et al. (2007) develop a theoretical model to delineate how e-commerce drivers affect export marketing strategy. Their work argues that internal e-commerce drivers directly increase a firm's degree of promotion adaptation, enhance communication and distribution efficiencies, facilitate greater distribution support and improve price competitiveness for export ventures.

Javalgi et al. (2005) present an integrative framework explaining the role of customer behaviour and customer relationship management in Internet companies to target global consumers and build a competitive advantage. Javalgi and Ramsey (2001) address various e-commerce-related issues and the dimensions influencing its growth and role as an electronic distribution channel. Okazaki and Taylor Charles (2013) identify theoretical foundations that can be used in research on social media in the context of international research. Their work explains how social media creates value in the context of international advertising.

Yamin and Sinkovics (2006) examine the effects of online internationalization on the psychic distance perceptions of internationalizing firms. Their work suggests that the experience of online interactivity can be a powerful influence on managerial perceptions, potentially reducing barriers to learning about customer behavior. Further, Eid et al. (2006) identify critical success factors for B2B IIM implementation and examine how these factors have been operationalized in real organizational settings.

Mathews et al. (2016) examine how the Internet technology is impacting on international market performance through the theoretical lens of the resource based view and capability perspective. Their work provides new insights into international Internet marketing capabilities and the relationship between international strategic orientation and international network capabilities and how they drive the international market growth.

Lipiäinen and Karjaluoto (2015) describe an overall branding logic of a case study of an international industrial company. Their work suggests strong integration of different functions in the firm to help fully exploit opportunities provided (Kocas and Akkan, 2016) by digital technology in the new media environment. Gregory et al. (2019) build on resource based view theory by examining the effects of e-commerce on exporting performance. Their work demonstrates that e-commerce marketing capabilities directly increase a firm's degree of distribution and communication efficiency, which in turn leads to enhanced export venture market performance.

The 10 articles included in this special issue include three perspective/points papers and seven empirical papers. In terms of perspective papers, Katsikeas et al. (2019) explore the opportunities and challenges facing firms in this new digital era concerning their IMS, and examine how international marketing practices can be revisited in the light of these developments. The authors point to the relevance and potentially important role that the deployment of online organizational resources and capabilities play in influencing foreign market selection and entry decisions and IMS choices, implementation and control. The authors thus explain how the use of digital technologies can facilitate the firm's foreign market choices and the adoption of effective marketing programs, and offer insights into the adoption of digital tools in more effectively implementing and controlling the firm's IMS.

Samiee (2020) aims to present an overview of the intersection of research into international marketing and the Internet, seeking areas where knowledge is developing, and where further research is required. The study identifies the role of the Internet as a tool for competitive advantage and internationalization. In considering these aspects of the Internet within IM, the necessity for establishing a foreign market presence is also examined. Further, it is asserted that the Internet's influence on internationalization is largely through exporting of products and digital services.

Sinkovics Rudolf and Sinkovics (2020) review Samiee's paper and offer a content analysis of a broader body of literature which includes internationally oriented papers in international business, international marketing, general management, marketing and strategy, as well as information systems. The underpinning question is whether and which particular information and communication technology concepts have successfully been adopted in the international marketing literature and what the inclusion or exclusion of these phenomena may imply for future research.

In terms of empirical studies, Liu et al.'s (2020) paper examines Internet marketing capabilities' impact on international market performance. The paper further investigates the mitigating roles of market- and entrepreneurial-oriented behaviors and knowledge internalization in this relationship. The effect of Internet use for customer management on Internet marketing capabilities is also examined. The results show that use of Internet for customer management positively influences Internet marketing capabilities. The results also support the positive impacts of Internet marketing capabilities on market- and entrepreneurial-oriented behaviors. Knowledge internalization mediates the relationships between market- and entrepreneurial-oriented behaviors and international market performance.

Vadana et al.'s study (2019) provides a consistent picture of how value-chain digitalization affects companies' internationalization and international marketing, and gives insights regarding the influence of the degree of value-chain digitalization on the level of internationalization. This paper takes an explorative approach based on a literature review and uses a conceptual analysis and research framework to empirically classify digitalized/-ing companies. This study finds ways to classify the internationalization of companies according to the degree of digitalization of their value-chain. The more these companies use Internet hardware infrastructure and web and mobile software technologies, the better they can leverage their foreign assets, achieving a higher share of foreign sales with relatively limited foreign assets.

Hsiao et al.'s (2019) research investigates the effect of original equipment manufacturing suppliers' electronic integration with global customers on their capability widening, following the literature on electronic integration, firm innovativeness, product modularity and dynamic capabilities. It also examines the moderating roles of supplier innovativeness and product modularity in the proposed relationship. The results show that electronic integration with global customers affects capability widening negatively, whereas supplier innovativeness affects capability widening positively. In addition, product modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between electronic integration and capability widening.

Hånell et al.'s (2019) work explores how market factors (pertaining to institutions, competition and resources) shape the international strategies of an online retailer. The findings show that online retailers can use partnerships to tackle industry dynamics and break into foreign markets. This type of “piggy-back internationalization” can be an effective strategy of handling foreign market dynamics in the entry phase: that is to say, the short term. Reliance upon relationships, however, may paradoxically inhibit retailers' abilities to stay competitive in the post-entry phase (i.e. the long term) since they become cut-off from the first-hand market learning.

Chen et al.'s (2020) research proposes the “country of reference” concept, in which consumers deliberately imitate the product choices of consumers from another country, to whom the former (i.e. the imitators) attribute superior or more prestigious personas. The proposed framework aims to explain consumers' inclination to “buy what certain foreigners buy.” The results suggest critical propositions related to the country of reference concept, discuss its marketing implications and pinpoint further research issues.

Wang's (2020) research offers a conceptualization of digital marketing capabilities (DMCs) and explores performance outcomes of DMCs for international firms, taking into account firm size and entrepreneurial orientation. The finding shows that DMCs contribute positively to performance. Firms with greater entrepreneurial orientation leverage DMCs more effectively and have better performance. Small firms with strong digital capabilities perform as well as medium-sized firms. Large firms perform marginally better than small- and medium-sized firms.

Finally, Jean et al.'s (2020) research develops and tests a theoretical framework of the moderating effect of virtual integration on interorganizational governance in international customer–supplier relationships. Specifically, drawing on relational governance literatures, the study investigates the direct effect of contract and relational governance on relationship performance, and examines the moderating effect of virtual integration on these relationships. The empirical findings indicate that virtual integration strengthens the effect of contractual governance on relationship performance. However, the moderating effect of virtual integration on relational governance is not significant.

To conclude, the core objective of this special issue is to advance scholarly insights into the effect of digitalization on IMS, with attention directed to the distinctive nature of the digitalization, outcomes and boundary conditions. The articles discussed in this introduction, and the manuscripts included in this special issue, present a range of research themes using a variety of theoretical foundations and methodological approaches to tackle the depth and breadth of the research agenda on how digitalization shapes firms' IMS. Several research topics emerge as a result that need additional scholarly attention.

First, while research discusses the different natures of digitalization in the context of IMS, such as the Internet, websites and supply chain information systems, relatively little attention is yet focused on the emergence of digital platforms, big data, 5G and block chains, etc. Further research may explore the effects of those new types of digital tools on different IMS dimensions such as product, channels, promotions issues and performance outcomes. Further, questions regarding how these emerging digital tools may shape firms' standardization/adaptation strategies may deserve further attention. Beyond this, researchers also find it fruitful to explore how those new digital tools jointly to affect firms' IMS.

Second, prior work examining the effect of digitalization on IMS largely focuses on direct effects, such as the effect of digitalization on international marketing performance. Limited work examines the boundary condition of the effect of digitalization on IMS. Future studies could explore different boundary conditions such as domestic and foreign institutional environments, market competition and different strategies as moderators.

Third, in terms of context, past work investigates how digitalization affects small and medium firms, or multinational enterprises or supply chain contexts. However, little work examines the nature and IMS on ibusinesses (Brouthers et al., 2016), those special types of E-business companies that use the Internet and other digital technologies to provide an Internet-based platform, which allows users to interact with each other. With more availability of empirical data on ibusinesses, future research may investigate IMS issues in a new context. Further, most prior work on the effect of digitalization on IMS pays largely attention on firms in developed markets. With the increasing numbers of ibusinesses from emerging markets, future research may benefit from exploring IMS these firms.

We believe that efforts by international marketing scholars to theoretically explore and empirically examine these questions can help shed lights on IMS in the age of digitalization.